Barry Popik
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Barry Popik (b. 1961) is an American amateur etymologist, a rated chess master who has competed in more than a hundred countries, and an administrative law judge who has also run for political office in New York City.
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[edit] Personal Background
Barry Popik was born in 1961 and raised in Rockland County, New York. He is a Manhattan resident since 1988. He married Angie Garcia on March 12, 2006. He was educated at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY graduating B.S. (Economics) in 1982, B.S. (Management) 1982; and in 1985 he graduated J.D. from Touro Law School, in Huntington, NY.
[edit] Chronicler of the American Language
In a profile on January 2, 2001, the Wall Street Journal described Barry Popik as "the restless genius of American etymology". He is a contributor-consultant to the Oxford English Dictionary, Dictionary of American Regional English, Historical Dictionary of American Slang, and the forthcoming Yale Dictionary of Quotations. He is recognized as an expert on the origins of the terms "Big Apple", "Windy City," "hot dog," and many other food and slang terms; he is an editor of the Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America.
Popik's work on the etymology of Big Apple has been widely acclaimed. Previously, it was thought that New York City's nickname came courtesy of jazz musicians' slang for the city. But, after extensive research at the New York Public Library, Popik traced the term back to the 1920s, when it was coined by the journalist John J. FitzGerald, a horse racing reporter for the Morning Telegraph. Horses love apples, and when Fitzgerald overheard African-American stable hands in a New Orleans racetrack talking about a particular race-course in the city as 'the Big Apple' - or the greatest reward any thoroughbred could want - he fell in love with the description and re-titled his racing column "Around the Big Apple". In 1997, Mayor Rudy Giuliani passed legislation renaming the southwest corner of West 54th Street and Broadway, the corner on which John J. FitzGerald resided from 1934 to 1963, “Big Apple Corner", and Barry Popik was honored by being asked to dedicate the new street name.
[edit] Political career
Popik was the Republican Party and Liberal Party of New York candidate for election as Manhattan Borough President in 2005. Popik received more than 40,000 votes but finished second to Scott Stringer, who received more than 200,000 votes. Stringer spent more than $1.5 million on his election campaign, whereas Popik spent less than $10,000. Popik's showing is respectable in a heavily Democratic city where the Republican Party did not even attempt to run candidates for Comptroller, Public Advocate or District Attorney.
[edit] Judicial career
Since 1990, Popik has served as a New York City administrative law judge in the Parking Violations Bureau of the City's Department of Finance.
[edit] Publications
- Studies in Slang: Part VI (ISBN 0-8204-4377-8)
- Profile of Popik in The banana sculptor, the purple lady, and the all-night swimmer: hobbies, collecting, and other passionate pursuits(2002).
- Senior Consulting Editor, Oxford Encyclopedia of Food and Drink in America (2004).
- Co-author, The Origin of New York City's Nickname "The Big Apple" (forthcoming 2006).
- Consulting Editor, Yale Dictionary of Quotations (forthcoming 2006).
